


I Reach For You (You Bring Me Home)

by Butterfly



Series: Scenes from a Resurrection Story [8]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-it fic, M/M, Quentin Coldwater/Alice Quinn (mentioned/minor), Quentin Coldwater/Arielle/Eliot Waugh (mentioned/minor), Resurrection story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 05:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: Eliot Waugh walks through a door.





	I Reach For You (You Bring Me Home)

**Author's Note:**

> There's some potential body horror/grossness happening in this? No worse than some of what we see on the show.

The cottage was completely gone, nothing left but vines and weeds. Of course it was, after another three hundred years. But the mosaic was still there, though the pieces were crumbled and ruined. Eliot pressed his hand against the dirt, let himself pull the haze of memory over his eyes, picturing the way things had looked, during those lovely, golden years.

There, just over there, Q had kissed Arielle for the first time while Eliot politely pretended not to watch.

By that tree, Teddy had taken his first faltering steps, falling on his ass half-way to his mother's arms.

And right _here_ was where Q had pulled together his courage and kissed Eliot, no expectations, just hope and love.

If Eliot could manage to be brave anywhere, it would be here, in this place where they'd loved each other for so long. He nodded to the others, and watched as Alice and Julia marked out the places for the rituals. Kady was scanning the area, looking up at the sky every now and then, gauging the timing. Penny was separating out the ingredients into the lots they would need for each segment of the casting. And Margo-- Margo had come over and wrapped her hand around his elbow.

“Holding up okay?”

“Fine,” Eliot said and it was close enough to being true. “How about you? First time back in Fillory since we abandoned the kingdom for our quest to save Q. Any regrets?”

“Of course not,” she said, fierce and feral. He pressed his hand over his heart, trying to contain the rush of unspeakable fondness, but failing, of course. Margo leaned her head against his arm. “I love him, too, El. I do. And I think maybe he died not knowing that. So, I gotta make it right.”

“I- I might not be able to help you figure out this time-jump mess.” Eliot patted her hand absently. “If Q- if he needs me...”

“Yeah, figured as much.” Margo sighed. “Hey, depending on how things go, maybe I can talk little miss Quinn into joining me. Give her something to distract her.”

“You're making some pretty wild assumptions there, Bambi,” Eliot said, but his heart had jumped a little at her words. “Even if they haven't fucked again yet, they _did_ get back together. Just because Q wanted me once, doesn't mean he still does. Wouldn't blame him.”

“I'd fucking blame him,” Margo said, immediately, bristling up next to him. Then she sighed and settled down again. “Fine. I guess I wouldn't. If what you told me is how it really went down, it does sound like you broke his fucking heart. You really made him cry?”

Eliot nodded, his fingers tightening against the fabric of his coat – his armor, he'd told Margo, when she'd asked him why he was still wearing black even though they'd were so close to getting Q back. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the cards that Julia had given him. Alice came over and touched him on the shoulder and he looked up. Okay, the initial prep was all done and Julia was ready, her hands held out in front of her for his signal, so...

He handed the ace of hearts to Margo, his hands shaking a little. She gave him a reassuring smile and held it steady. He forced his fingers to be _still_ , and then did the sending tuts for the card. “Q. Penny. Julia is going to light up the beacon – we're using Twenty-Three as the conduit, so it should go right to you, Penny. It'll lead you to the nearest junction point. Q, the spell said that the guardian will choose who crosses the veil, so it could be any one of us who comes to get you. Once you're through, one of us will reattach you to your body, depending on- well, on who isn't exhausted by that point. Alice is- she's pretty sure it won't hurt. Margo has been stress-baking, so she brought a lot of shit for you to eat once you're here again – and, don't worry, I tested the food and it's fine, I guess she learned some things from Hoberman when they weren't fuc-”

“ _Hey_ ,” Margo protested. “I could always fucking cook, El. I just usually don't bother. I made- I made your favorite things, Q, even though it _pained_ me to do it because you have shitty taste in food and never listened to me about- well, I guess we can talk about it in person soon.”

There was a slight pause, and then Forty's voice, “Oh, for the love of- _stop crying_ , Coldwater, take the fucking card, and thank your friends for coming to save you.”

“Uh, hey, guys,” Q's voice was soft and, yeah, a little nasally. “I guess it's just hitting me that this is really happening. Um. We'll keep an eye out for the beacon and I'll see you all soon. If I don't- if we don't talk again before it happens, and I don't remember right away... even if I don't act like it when I wake up, I am... I am really fucking grateful, okay? I _want_ to be there with you and I _want_ to be alive, and don't let my- my bullshit, useless brain convince you that I don't. I- I have never- _never_ had anything in my life that matters to me more than all of you. Not magic, not Fillory, not fu- not fucking anything. You guys are my best thing, okay?” The card's colors faded out and Margo stuffed it into her purse. She was sniffling a little but holding it together. Eliot... Eliot felt light-headed.

Alice was clinging to his shoulder and he could feel her entire body quivering with unspoken emotion. “You didn't want to say anything to him before it all goes down?” he asked her, softly.

“There's too much,” she said. “I couldn't- I couldn't narrow it down.”

He sighed, patted her gently on the back. “And you didn't want him to hear you crying.”

“That too,” she agreed, with a tiny little laugh.

Julia completed the spell, and a beam of light shot through her hands and through Twenty-Three, bathing him in all the colors of a prism for five... ten seconds. Then the flood of light collapsed down to a pinprick of blue-white and fled to the ritual circle Alice had marked in the center of the mosaic, disappearing in a bright flash. Julia shook her head a little, and went to check on Twenty-Three, who seemed pretty shaky himself.

“Okay, that's my cue,” Alice said, making her way over to the opening set of ingredients. She placed herself at the north-east corner of the mosaic, waited a moment for the timing to be just right, then started tutting in the direction of the circle.

After Alice, came Eliot – exactly one hour after she'd started, in the opposite corner. He could feel something in his bones as he made the motions, muttered the words, reached down and smeared the animal blood and powered granite between his fingers. Something opening up in the world, a place of power, a doorway to the worlds after all other worlds ended.

He swayed when he finished up his section, needing to sit down on the ground for a minute or two. He saw Margo make her way past him, to the north-west to start her part of it. Then, when she was done, it was Julia's turn.

The timing was right – they'd worked through sunset and now the moons were rising. The moons should reveal the doorway, reveal the guardian.

He could feel the anticipation in the air, and a fog had risen up around the mosaic as the night had fallen. And now, precisely five hours after Alice had started the first tuts on the ritual, he saw it.

There was an archway in the center of the circle. Plain and simple, it looked like it was made of wood – no, it looked like it had grown there, like it was a root or a branch that was simply bending around to create an entrance. He gripped his cane and went forward.

“If we went to all that effort and it didn't even fucking _work_ ,” Margo said, and then, “Uh, El, what are you doing?”

“You don't see it?” He pressed his hand against the wood and it felt- it felt solid under his fingertips.

“I just see mist and fog,” Alice said from his other side. “What do you see?”

There was a long – endless – hallway on the other side of the archway and, seated a few feet inside, was someone he never thought he'd see again. Arielle, beckoning him forward with one crooked finger, an eyebrow raised, that teasing twinkle in her eyes.

“El, be careful, okay, I don't see-”

He could feel Margo's hands on his arm, could hear her words, but he brushed them off, stepping forward, into the hallway, dropping down to his knees in front of Arielle in the silence that settled down around them.

“Are you _her_ or are you... the guardian?” he asked, breathless.

“I am the doorway. Every spell, every magic, has some way to escape built into it,” she said, and though her face was Arielle's, her voice was- was much older. “I'm the cheat for the Underworld. The loophole. I look like... I look like what you need me to look like.”

“There's a trial, a test? What do you want me to do?”

“What are you willing to do, Eliot Waugh, one-time High King of Fillory? What would you be willing to give up, to get who you search for?” She reached forward and cupped his jaw in her hand, studying him carefully.

“Anything,” he said. Not, not anguished, like he would have expected. Only the truth.

“Dangerous words to something like me.” But she seemed pleased. “And if he lives and goes right back to that girl – the one he throws himself against time and time again like he wants to break himself on her. What if friendship is all you ever get from him again? Is that enough?”

“Of course.” Eliot took a shuddering breath. _Arielle_. It would be easier to say this if he pretended it was really her. “I was- yes, he's the man I love but he's also- he's my best friend. He's my family.” Please, please, _please_.

She nodded, took her hand away from his face. “The trial is not complicated, Eliot Waugh.” She got to her feet and gestured behind her. “You must simply walk down the corridor. You must not stop. You must not turn around. You must not hesitate. No matter what you hear, no matter what you feel. Walk until you hear _his_ voice, feel _his_ hands.”

Slowly, Eliot started to his feet, but she waved him down again with a careless gesture.

“Ah, before you go, a few adjustments. Take off your shoes and socks. Leave them here. And give me that- that tie you have on.”

As he was setting his shoes aside, he saw that while the archway was still there, it was now embedded in the dirt and stone that made up the passageway. He gave Arielle – the guardian – a questioning look as he handed her his tie.

“It will open again when you have completed the trial,” she said. “Close your eyes.” He felt her wrap the tie around his face, blocking out his sight. She placed her hand into his and helped him to his feet, turning him around. “Now, walk forward. Do not stop until you reach him.”

He took the first step, then the second.

The ground under his feet was... uncomfortably warm. As much as it had looked like dirt, it didn't feel like it, it felt-- odd. Slimy, like stepping on a slug. He didn't let himself think about it, made himself take step after step. His fingers brushed against the side of the passageway and- and that definitely wasn't stone. It was... it felt like touching the inside of a-

Something crunched unpleasantly against the arch of his foot, and he could feel it breaking the skin, just barely. He was going to need- need a really long bath when he got home.

There was an odd ringing in his ears and then he heard a voice, fuzzy and dim. Margo, sounding half-hysterical, “He's not breathing. Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. Wake up, El. Please, _please_ , wake up! Alice, break the damn spell. We can't- I can't lose them _both_ , please.”

_Sorry, Bambi_ – but he didn't let himself slow his pace.

Something sharp brushed against his shoulder, ripping the coat. He was pretty sure those were – not thinking about it. Walking forward.

His next step nearly made him slip, and he had to catch himself on the wall – the soft, almost gooey wall that gave when his weight pressed into it – in order to keep from falling on his ass. His hand was sticky now, and he tried to wipe it clean as he went. It was... if this was real, he was probably going to have to burn this coat.

Margo was still screaming, half curses and half pleading.

His feet were ankle-deep now in a hot, soupy liquid and he was so fucking grateful to not-Arielle for blindfolding him because he did not- he absolutely did not want to know what he was wading through. He was having to clutch at the sides of the corridor more often now, to keep himself from falling, and something was wiggling and squirming against his shin and-

And then he was on drier land again, but hard and ropey, wrinkled. The smell was- years of growing up on a fucking farm told him exactly what the smell was. He yanked his shirt up, pressed it over his nose and mouth, and used his other hand to keep himself steady.

It felt... it felt fucking endless, and he could feel the passageway as it curved and dipped and he followed along with it. It was too hot now, and he was sweating under his coat, under his shirt, but he had to- had to close his ears to Margo's wails and just keep walking.

There was, shit, no, everything just _stopped_. It couldn't be the end, not if there was- his hands groped against the wall in front of him, warm and wrinkled and with the slightest bit of give right-

He pushed his hand there, where it gave away, and he could feel air coming from the other side as he stumbled through and there were- oh, god there were hands on his shoulders and a voice, _Q's voice_ , saying, “El? You look like- what happened to you?” And there were hands on his face, pulling away the blindfold and-

Q. His hair as short as it had been when Eliot had seen him in the park that day, wearing a plain black shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His cheeks were streaked with tears but his smile made his eyes crinkle up at the corners. He looked tired and hungry and-

“I think I just walked through a dragon's digestive tract,” Eliot said, dizzily, touching the corner of Q's mouth, leaving streaks of slime and bloody goo on his face. “ _Wow_. Were you always this pretty?”

Q's smile widened and he tilted his face toward Eliot's.

“Okay, not to break up the hallmark moment or anything, but we shouldn't linger. You need to get back where you belong,” Penny said. Eliot spared a glance his direction... then did a double-take. Penny's face and arms were covered in long, thin scratches and his shirt was partially ripped off.

“Are you- did you get into a fight with a cat or something?” Eliot looked back down at Q, who had a couple of scratch marks, too, on the curve of his neck.

“There were some thorns in the last- you aren't even paying attention.” He heard Penny's sigh, but it was hard to focus on anything except pressing his fingers against the marks on Q, trying to see if they were bleeding. “Look, just take Coldwater and get out of here before another fight finds us. The last year has been... rough.”

“Year?” Eliot narrowed his eyes and tried to straighten Q's hair. “It's been- been three months for us.”

“We think it's been a year here,” Q said, and his hands were pressed warm against Eliot's stomach. “I mean. We don't need to eat or sleep, so it's just a guess.”

“We don't need to eat, but we _can_ and I've fucking missed food while we've been on the run, so, go on. Get out of here.” Penny waved at them. “I assume you go back through the door that appeared when you did."

Q pulled away from Eliot – not far, and he kept holding onto his hand – and said to Penny, very seriously, “Thank you. For everything.”

“Yeah, well, you can return the favor,” Penny said. “And maybe the next time I see either of you, we'll all be topside.” He gave them a wave that only seemed mildly sarcastic, and then turned and walked away.

Eliot tugged Q forward, towards the doorway. It was the same one he'd come through, that root or branch, oddly bent, only a step or two away. “Before... before we go back. I wanted to say- since it might take you a while to remember all this- I was... I was selfish and I was scared but I shouldn't have let my fears hurt you. I'm sorry, Q.”

“Hurt me?” Q asked, sounding puzzled. “What are you talking about, El? You're saving my life.”

“Not now,” Eliot said, with a shake of his head. “Uh, I guess it was... it was two years ago for you now. When we- we got back from the mosaic and I- I told you-”

“That you didn't want me like that,” Q said, soft and patient. “It's okay, El. You don't have to-”

“I was _lying_ , okay.” Eliot cupped Q's face in his hands. Q blinked up at him, eyes wide and startled, a baby rabbit in the underbrush. “I _do_ want you, I _would_ choose you, I was just- just so afraid that I would get you and then... and then lose you. And it fucking happened anyway, I lost you anyway, and I just-”

Q's mouth pressed against his, clumsy and chaste.

“You always have to be the brave one,” Eliot muttered, after Q pulled away again. “How do you manage to be so fucking brave, huh?”

“I'm really not,” Q said, and he pushed himself up on his tip-toes again for another kiss, and this one was-- deeper and better and- and Eliot closed his eyes and put every ounce of his love into it, so that maybe Q would still feel the memory of it, even if he forgot the details. Q was panting when the kiss broke and he was warm and he felt so fucking alive but-

“We have to go back. Spell won't last forever. Feeling ready?”

Q nodded, and he put his hand in Eliot's, and they stepped through, together.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle.


End file.
